University of Sydney did a trial in 2008 but the organisation as a whole is not actively pursuing, the Ed faculty is using both Desire2Learn and Pebblepad this year.

Types of ePortfolios: Assessment, Presentation, Learning, Personal Development, Multiple Owners, Working.

ePortfolios are challenged by a change of context ( eg institution, workplace, lifestyle) Multiple reflections of identity fragment the presence of the individual. In our project we’ve talked about this issue and tossed around ideas such as a eportfolio available to each Tasmanian, that can travel with them around their lives, work and study. The bonus of a ‘system’ is that it’s possible to support, guide and integrate more easily. For those that might not be self-directed and intrinsically motivated to establish their own online presence, the institutional model would serve as an entry point into this kind of learning behaviour.

There are several sites with eportfolio systems set up for trialling – www.edna.tv/mahara www.foliospaces.com And exabis through edna groups as a plugin to moodle.

ePortfolios can be an example of assessment AS learning, as well as OF and FOR. The range of formats that can be used encourages assessment of what has been learnt, more so than assessing the use of a particular format or technology (assuming of course teachers exhibit flexibility in their assessment practice.

Pru wrapped up the presentation with a range of quotes including George Siemens’ comment that there should be personal control of the learning history rather than institutional (reworded from my notes)

The handout for this session was quite handy with a great selection of links. Here it is on the edna site (doc format)

Question to the group: how do you go about finding materials for a new course/subject?
Group: Google, peers
Us 3: LORN, networks – peers, ask Dallas to do a search if unit code known.
Me.edu.au has social tagging feature now.

Then a whistlestop tour through creative commons, repositories etc.

Notes a bit thin as somehow I did not save a large chunk in flipping back and forth between Word and IE on the jasjam.

Unesco statement I think. I like.

Slides from Edna site on Slideshare

Handout from Edna site (doc format)

12 priority areas – hmmm, looks like everything is covered. So broad reach rather than tight focus.
Edna Site described as a mix of Web1 and Web2.
Suggest in RSS for Educators PD workshops we include the VET RSS feed as a suggested one.
(Pru just mentioned they might use the video footage to make a podcast – be interesting to see the sound quality from the flip camera in that setting)
Also another one for our own workshop program are the sector specific hot topics pages. And also to link from Elearning Central. Nice way to enrich our pages with little effort.
In advanced search you are able to specify media type eg audio, image, interactive, text, video. Yay! Didn’t know that one.
Everything on edna resources has to be available online, ideally free (include some not-free if not much on that topic free of charge, ideally non-commercial, available for educators)
Federated search has a good range of sources. AFLF but not sure if it includes LORN. Suspect not.
2 minutes to go and we’re onto the Groups area.
Promoted as space where you can have groups for discussion without hassles of usernames for non-staff/students.
Lists space available as well. (C4CL?)
Me.edu.au – online professional networks – space for online professional presence that can gather your varied online presences into one space that can then be passed on.

What is happening in the classroom is too far removed from the learner’s real world. We need to be looking at the literacies for real life NOW not last centuries problems.
What’s important?
Learning how to learn with passion and curiosity.
Innovation & creativity otherwise a robot can do it.
Critical thinking and problem solving
Technolgical literacy – if they can’t manage technology then they won’t survive.

If you know how to access it, you can find most of what you need to know about almost anything online.

Open Courseware avaialable online – got to MIT for the interaction with the people who designed the courses and those also stdying.

OLPC – opportunity to explore and experiment – designed for learning learning. for the children to control the machine not be controlled and strutured by machine.
Scratch website, picocrickets, gamemaker, squeak etoys, free the goat (curriculum corporation)

Model for 21st Century education

Pedagogy has to go – teacher centred concept.
Excitement about learning is the key.
Fundamentals
Learners to be active particpants, learning how to learn, unrestricted by time place age. creative with skills, work independently aand with others, flexible and adaptable, working with and control tech to achieve their goals. (byo laptop schemes evidence of that – control laptop to make it do what you need)
Q: what is the ebay of education?